Governing Coalition Receives a Boost After Midterm Elections in Argentina

By Nathan Davis on October 23, 2017

President Mauricio Macri’s coalition, Cambiemos, came out on top after Sunday’s midterm elections. Cambiemos picked up 21 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, bringing their total to 107 or nearly 42 percent of the Chamber. In the Senate, Cambiemos won nine more seats bringing their total to 24 or one-third of all members.

Election night was bittersweet for the former President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and her allies. While every coalition aligned with Kirchner lost seats in either the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, or both, Kirchner herself was able to secure a seat in the Senate.

In the province of Buenos Aires, Unidad Ciudadana, the coalition headed by Kirchner, received 37.25 percent of the vote coming in second to Cambiemos. Provinces in Argentina are represented by three Senators elected simultaneously to six-year terms. Two seats are awarded to the party that receives the most votes, while the third goes to the party that comes in second.

As a Senator, Kirchner will receive the immunities that come with that office. Currently, she is under investigation for corruption charges, including illicit association and fraudulent administration stemming from her time as President.

A Renewed Mandate

President Macri and his allies in Congress find themselves in a much more favorable position to pass large reform bills and lead Argentina away from the Kirchnerism that characterized South America’s second-largest economy for more than a decade.

Macri is expected to push forward tax and other economic reforms, which he says are desperately needed.

“Generating work is the fundamental tool for reducing poverty. We are going to work sector by sector, we already started. We will move forward with reforms to generate more work. Today we have two problems: people who have no job and the half of Argentines working in the black,” said the head of state.